There’s an election coming and you should vote, but a healthy democracy requires more of its citizens than rocking up to the polling booth. Ideally, all of us would do some thinking before voting, and politics relies on a smaller number actually doing: party activists are an important part of the electoral process, putting in the unpaid work of leafleting and door-knocking.
This activism is on the wane. Combined Conservative and Labour membership was around 4 million in the early 1950s – nearly one in 10 people. These days it’s nearer one in a 100 who are a member of one of the big three UK-wide parties.
That’s not good news for democracy, but possibly is for your job prospects. A new study conducts an experiment, of the same kind used to measure race discrimination, to ask how recruiters respond to applicants whose CVs spell out their political activism. Not well. Political keenies are judged to be less desirable to hire, less creative and more insensitive. Ouch. The perception damage is greater when applying for jobs requiring more qualifications, or for right-wing nationalist party activists.
This experiment was in Belgium, with its many political parties, but there has been related research in America, which more closely matches Britain with two large parties dominating politics. It found political CVs were less likely to lead to an interview, but only when they didn’t chime with the majority partisan preference of that region. You don’t want to be a Democrat applying in the reddest parts of Texas.
Who should we worry about? Not activists, who should still go door-knocking this year, but maybe leave that fact off their next job application. Hiding your political past is harder for another group currently refreshing their CVs: soon to be ex-MPs.
• Torsten Bell is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation and author of the forthcoming book Great Britain? How to Get Our Future Back
